Excellent!

DSH
-------------

"Germany will be hit harder than any other country by US President
George W. Bush's announcement on Monday that the Pentagon will withdraw
70,000 troops from overseas and return them to US bases, US officials
said at the weekend.

About 45,000 of the reduction will come in Europe, a majority being
culled from the 75,000 US servicemen based in facilities across Germany.
The US has been in talks with German officials about its plans for more
than a year. It will be the biggest restructuring of US forces overseas
since the end of the cold war. The plans include a general briefing in
December when most of the overview was presented, according to a senior
state department official."...

The German reductions are expected to include the withdrawal of heavy
army divisions the 1st armoured, based in Wiesbaden, and the 1st
infantry, based in Wurzburg and the closure of 13 installations near the
towns of Friedberg and Giessen. The air force will withdraw from
Rhein-Main air base in Frankfurt and consolidate operations in Ramstein
and Spangdahlem. One US official said there had been an intense, joint
Pentagon/state department effort to ease the German government's
concerns about the reduction and that some new capabilities including a
new brigade of light-armoured Stryker vehicles are a result of German
requests.

Other upgrades will include better training and command facilities,
focused at Grafenwoehr, where a $630m (509m pounds) project is under way
to build new facilities. German officials expressed wariness at the
prospect of big withdrawals, saying they were likely to be hard on small
communities that relied on the US presence for economic activity...."

Peter Spiegel, Defence Correspondent, The Financial Times

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/7c357c6e-eeef-11d8-848a-00000e2511c8.html

And Gerhard Schroeder can just suck on his thumb and cry into his
schnapps.

Outstanding!

Let our soldiers and their families spend those millions of dollars in
our own U.S. ECONOMY -- NOT the GERMAN Economy -- and
create more JOBS, right here in the U. S. of A. -- through the
multiplier effect.

D. Spencer Hines

Lux et Veritas et Libertas

Vires et Honor